Category Archives: Thinking about stopping

The Betty Ford Clinic maintains there is an alcoholic personality which they describe below:

The first is a low frustration tolerance. Alcoholics seem to experience more distress when enduring long-term dysphoria or when tiresome things do not work out quickly. Alcoholics are more impulsive than most.

Secondly, alcoholics are more sensitive. This sensitivity relates especially to nuances of interpersonal relationships. Alcoholics have a “low rejection threshold.” They feel more apart or left out. Incidentally, a drink or two “works wonderfully” to deal with this feeling. Yet, it is known that sensitive people are often especially creative. Alcoholism seems to selectively strike gifted people. Most American Nobel Prize winners in literature suffered from alcoholism.

Another trait found in excess in alcoholics is a low sense of one’s own worth. Then there is isolation. Alcoholics are loners. It is with most difficulty they are able to share innermost thoughts and concerns with anyone.

Although they may be articulate, charming and very persuasive, they operate behind an armor or shell that keeps the world out. They are afraid of intimacy.

So let’s dissect and analyze:

Low frustration tolerance (LFT), or “short-term hedonism” is a concept utilized to describe the inability to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations. The feeling that reality should be as wished, insisting that everything that a person dislikes should be resolved quickly and easily, and if it’s not, it leads to emotional disturbance.[1] Behaviors are then derived towards avoiding frustrating events which, paradoxically, lead to increased frustration and even greater mental stress. *Check*

Are your own feelings easily bruised and do you worry endlessly about hurting other people’s? Do you well up when watching charity adverts for illness or animal cruelty, dislike scary films or feel bothered by loud or irritating noises (think music coming from somebody’s earphones) in a way that those around you don’t? Then you could be a Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP, a condition that’s common but until now rarely understood. *Check*

Fear & Anxiety are the cornerstones of low self esteem (Low self worth and low self esteem are synonyms; they mean virtually the same thing). Those who suffer from low self-esteem experience extreme fear and anxiety frequently. Believing that there is something innately wrong with themselves, these low self esteem sufferers experience self-esteem attacks (often called panic attacks) when they do something they deem to have been stupid, something they think others have noticed, and something that confirms their own feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, being undeserving or unlovable. During these attacks they may attack or withdraw and isolate while feeling embarrassed, humiliated, devastated, depressed, even despairing. Depending on how seriously they perceive their “mistake” they may not recover for minutes, hours, days, or longer. They are often too fearful to ask for help, thinking that needing help is an admission of inadequacy. *Check*

So that’s three out of three for me and yes I isolate too. Do these traits and descriptions resonate for you too?

Prim recently lent me this book to read ‘Out of Time‘ – a book about midlife, or as Carl Jung called it the ‘midlife transition‘ between youth and old age. As I approach both my 4th soberversary and my 49th birthday it feels hugely prescient. Thank you Prim! 🙂

And as you would hope there was a passage about stopping drinking as part of that experience. Over to Miranda:

An old friend of mine gave up drinking when he was 45 (I was 6 weeks before my 45th birthday). He says: ‘I decided I was going to divide my adult life into two halves. Twenty five years’ boozing. And twenty five years without booze.’

He gave up after a many-week bender that took him to New York, then Manchester – partying ‘with a bunch of doctors and judges, everyone off their tits’ – then out to the countryside and a New Year’s Eve on the Jim Beam and the JD and the charlie: ‘I was totally out of it for a month.’ He woke up on New Year’s Day and couldn’t get out of bed until 6pm. His kids were worried about him, he was three stone overweight and he was in agony. I thought: ‘This is going to finish me off, if I carry on like this. Don’t get me wrong, as a swan song, that month was brilliant. But I had to stop.’

So he did. No drink, no drugs. His social life had to change, obviously, but he gave himself some rules. Now, if he’s going out with friends, there has to be a purpose to the evening – ‘a third-party stimulus’ – like a meal, or a comedy night, or a film. If he’s going to a party, he will stay only two hours: ‘9.30 till 11.30. And then I leave. It’s fine. Nobody cares.’

He says: ‘There’s nothing so good as a night out on the piss. And I’ll always have the Pub Years. But I’d like to live the life I’m living until I’m 70, to be active and thoughtful, to work and engage with things. You get less sharp as you get older and I don’t want to do anything to make that worse.’

We talk about the difference between drinking in your twenties and early thirties and drinking when you’re older. His forty-something boozing resulted in him getting into some proper scrapes. The drinking kept him behaving as though he were younger, as though he was the same age as when he’d first started properly drinking. It helped him ignore the fact that his life had changed, that it involved other people: wife, kids, workmates. It made him continue to take risks, to believe himself hilarious and invicible. To suppress his psychological baggage by never confronting it. To drag his angst around, through being drunk or hungover all the time.

‘And then’, he says, ‘I stopped drinking and discovered I was far less complex than I thought. My main problem was I was a pisshead.

‘Also, why pretend you’re young? You’re less interesting when you’re young. At uni, what are you going to talk about after you’ve banged on about your parents and your course? You have to drink to hide your inadequacies. But at our age, if you can’t find something interesting to talk about with someone for two hours, with all the shit you’ve done and all the stuff you know, then that is pathetic, really. Middle-aged people have a lot to say, and it can be really fascinating. You don’t need to drink to get you through that.’

So so true for me all of that, like the biggest loudest ‘amen brother’. And Miranda writes a brilliant description of what we have chosen to leave behind too:

Madness is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Your reaction to drink and drugs changes as you age. Especially the aftermath. The hangovers arrive like a hostile alien invasion. They swarm you, you cannot fight. You are pinned down, poisoned, from head to heart to soul.

It’s amazing to see the British finally begin to talk about our feelings. But even as we mark this year’s Mental Health Awareness week, there’s still an elephant in the therapist’s waiting room: alcohol.

The physical health risks of drinking are well known. Less discussed are the mental health consequences. These are real and significant, and seem to be getting worse. For instance, the number of people admitted to hospital with alcohol-related behavioural disorders has risen in the last 10 years by 94% for people aged between 15 and 59, and by 150% for people over 60.

Alcohol played a key part in my own problems but it took me years to come out of denial about it.

I never drank in the morning or in parks, just in a British way, bingeing along with, well, everybody else. I didn’t question it because no one else seemed concerned.

Presenting to therapists over the years with anxiety, patterns of self-destructive compulsive behaviour, swinging between thinking I was the most important and the most worthless person on the planet, they barely asked how much I was tipping down my neck. And it was a lot.

The more I drank to medicate my low self-esteem, the worse my anxiety got and the more I drank to dull it. Years passed and I couldn’t see I was stuck right in the classic “cycle of addiction”.

Eventually a friend of mine who had gone into Overeaters Anonymous sheepishly suggested I might have a problem. I resented it hugely. I was successful with a good job. There was no problem.

Eventually, it was a work incident that woke me up. As editor of Attitude magazine, I believed it would be culturally significant to have Harry Potter on the cover of a gay magazine. When Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry in the film franchise, agreed, the only gap in his schedule for a shoot was early on a Sunday morning, which was annoying. Saturday night was my favourite time to go out. But fine. I could do this.

I decided not to drink the day before. No wine at lunch, nor during the play I went to see, and then straight home. All went well. Just as I was about to go to bed, ready for the shoot the next day, curiosity got the better of me and I logged on to a dating site, just to check my messages.

The next thing I remember was waking up, empty cans everywhere, with a bunch of messages on my phone asking where I was. Daniel and his publicist couldn’t have been nicer when I arrived with my lame excuse, insisting I go home to bed and that the shoot would be OK, and he found time later in the week to do our interview. Disaster was averted but it was the wake-up call I needed.

Since finally giving up alcohol, I’ve learned many things. First, that addiction is everywhere. That it is not about the drinking (or whatever the substance is), but the feelings underneath. Usually there is some kind of childhood trauma that needs to be addressed. I’ve learned that it isn’t about when or where you drink but about whether you can easily stop once you’ve started. I’ve also learned that there is an astonishing lack of understanding about addiction in general, not just from the public but sometimes by professionals who, being human too, often have their own issues to deal with.

Last year I did another interview, with Robbie Williams and singer John Grant talking about their life-saving experiences of recovery from alcohol, drugs and sex addiction – and this time, I wasn’t late for it. Studies continually show a link between alcohol abuse and violence, domestic abuse and suicide, so talking about it is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

The British drink too much. Alcohol must be next on the mental health agenda.

My son was conceived on a Bank Holiday August week-end. Ironically I also attended a Hen Do that week-end where as you can guess much alcohol was consumed despite my trying to conceive at the same time. So this post today seems fitting. It is courtesy of a guest blog for Alcohol Policy UK that I read in May called Drinking in pregnancy: where next for preventing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in the UK?

In an article that was entirely about alcohol and pregnancy there was reassuringly no mention of the author consuming alcohol during pregnancy, indeed quite the reverse “I don’t actually want booze in my body”. But neither was there explicit reference to the harms that alcohol can cause in pregnancy.

The harms caused by consuming alcohol in pregnancy

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is an umbrella term that encompasses the broad range of conditions that are related to maternal alcohol consumption. The most severe end of the spectrum is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) associated with distinct facial characteristics, growth restriction and permanent brain damage. However, the spectrum includes conditions displaying mental, behavioural and physical effects on a child which can be difficult to diagnose. Confusingly, these conditions also go under several other names including Neuro-developmental Disorder associated with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure (ND-PAE) the preferred term by the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (APA DSM-V), alcohol-related birth defects, alcohol-related neuro-developmental disorder, and partial fetal alcohol syndrome.

How common is FASD?

A recent study which brought together information from over 300 studies estimates the prevalence of drinking in pregnancy to be close to 10%, and around 1 in 4 women in Europe drinking during pregnancy. Their estimates of FAS (the most severe end of the spectrum) were 14.6 per 10000 people worldwide or 37.4 per 10000 people in Europe, corresponding to 1 child in every 67 women who drank being born with FAS.

Given the figure for alcohol consumption in pregnancy is even higher in the UK, with some studies suggesting up to 75% of women drink at some point in their pregnancy, conservatively in the UK we might expect a prevalence of FASD of at least 1%. We also know that it is highly unlikely that anything close to this number of individuals have formally had a diagnosis. This lack of knowledge of the prevalence in the UK is hampering efforts to ensure the required multi-sector support for those affected by FASD and their families.

Current policy

For some time a significant focus of alcohol in pregnancy research was to try and identify a safe threshold of consumption, without demonstrable success. No evidence of harm at low levels does not however equate to evidence of no harm and as such in 2016 the Chief Medical Officer revised guidance on alcohol consumption in pregnancy to recommend that women should avoid alcohol when trying to conceive or when pregnant. Though this clarity of guidelines has been well received by the overwhelming majority of health professionals there are barriers to its implementation with few professionals “very prepared to deal with the subject”. In addition, knowledge of the guideline amongst the general public has yet to be evaluated.

As part of the 2011 public health responsibility deal a commitment to 80% of products having labels which include warnings about drinking when pregnant forms part of the alcohol pledges. A study in 2014 showed that 90% of all labels did indeed include this information. However, it has also been shown that this form of education is amongst the least effective in terms of alcohol interventions, and the pledge is no longer in effect.

Pregnancy is recognised as a good time for the initiation of behaviour change yet in the context of alcohol consumption it is arguably too late. An estimated half of all pregnancies are unplanned and there remains therefore a window of early pregnancy before a woman is likely to have had contact with a health professional and before the guidelines can be explained during which unintentional damage to her unborn baby could occur. The same argument can be used when considering the suggestion of banning the sale of alcohol to pregnant women – visible identification of pregnancy tends only to be possible at the very latest stages.

How then to address consumption of alcohol during pregnancy?

Consumption of alcohol is doubtless shaped by the culture and context of the society in which one is living. Highest levels of alcohol consumption in pregnancy are, unsurprisingly, seen in countries where the population consumption of alcohol is also highest. Current UK policy that is directed to reducing population consumption of alcohol will likely have a knock-on effect of reducing alcohol consumption in pregnancy.

Many women will however be familiar with the barrage of questions that they encounter when not drinking on a night out. From the not-so-subtle “Not drinking, eh… Wonder why that is? <nudge, nudge, wink, wink>” to the more overt “Are you pregnant?”. The road to conception and pregnancy is littered with enough stumbling blocks and pressures that the additional unintentional announcement of either fact of conception or intention to conceive is an unnecessary cause of potential further anxiety. Until society accepts that not drinking is an acceptable choice, without any need for clarification or explanation, then pregnant women or those hoping to conceive who are adhering to guidelines will continue to identify themselves, perhaps before they want to.

What next?

The UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for FASD had its inaugural meeting in June 2015. This group calls for an increased awareness of FASD particularly regarding looked after children and individuals within the criminal justice system, sectors where the prevalence of FASD is particularly high. Concerted efforts need to be made to identify children with FASD to ensure that the appropriate support pathways are in place. Alongside this, efforts to ensure the best mechanisms for education of the dangers of alcohol consumption in pregnancy need to be increased, including training for midwives, and other health professionals who may be able to offer brief intervention and advice to women both before and after conception.

NOFAS run a national FASD helpline on on 020 8458 5951 as do the FASD Trust on 01608 811 599.

So this was featured in The Independent in July and was picked up by Alcohol Policy UK. After a Russian heiress was found guilty of being drunk in charge of a child, the Independent dug out the 1902 licensing act.

The Summer’s social calendar is already in swing events from family barbecues to village fetes already lining up. However, while drinking when in charge of children at family events is common practice, it is also actually a breach of the law.

With even David Cameron leaving his eight-year-old daughter behind at a pub back in 2012, parents drinking while looking after their children is an everyday occurrence. But a century old law forbids the behaviour.

Being drunk while in charge of a child under the age of seven is illegal according to the 1902 licencing act. The law states that a fine or up to a month’s imprisonment would result if “any person is found drunk in any highway or other public place, or on any incensed premises, while having the charge of a child.”

“The threshold would be whether the child was compromised. If you’re having lunch with a couple of glasses of wine, you probably wouldn’t be considered drunk in charge of a child,” solicitor advocate Joy Merriam tells The Sun.

Being alert and capable of safeguarding your child are the key responsibilities that could be compromised by drinking irresponsibly. If parents are unable to look after their children and protect them from physical harm they could be committing the offence.

“There is no fixed amount under the current legislation, but it could certainly be argued that if you are an adult solely responsible for a child, it is better not to drink alcohol at all,” family lawyer Jo Shortland tells The Independent.

However, Ms Merriam adds that in cases of this type where parents are arrested on suspicion of the offence, prosecutions are infrequent and most commonly passed on to social services.

“Those responsible for children need to consider their own limitations and take a sensible approach to alcohol consumption,” family lawyer Deborah Heald tells The Independent.

The charity Drinkaware also released the following advice for parents: “Drink within the low risk alcohol unit guidelines of not regularly drinking more than 14 units per week for both men and women, and spreading them evenly over three days or more. This shows your child that adults can enjoy alcohol in moderation.”

So it is the second week of the summer holidays and for many of us with children this can be a trying time as we juggle work, childcare and the family holiday. We might drink more to cope or we might drink more while celebrating the relaxing of rules because it is the school holidays. We might be trying to keep our drinking hidden so they don’t notice or we may just give up entirely and not care at all. I swung between every one and all of those positions and feelings back in the day!

I’ve had the interesting experience this last week of my children going away on holiday for a week with their grandparents leaving us footloose and fancy free for the first time in 11 years! In the past this would have been a green light to an absolute booze fest – no kids for a week would have mean’t the brakes were well and truly off with no one watching us so it’s been valuable to see how far I’ve come since 4 years ago. It’s been pub lunches with lovely AF drinks, cake and tea out, cinema & chocolate, nice meals at home but no late nights getting shitfaced and days wasted in bed with a hangover – and no noise generators but ourselves, how lovely 😉

So recently The Priory contacted me about their new interactive awareness campaign and I thought I’d share it here. Over to them:

I am writing to make you aware of an educational campaign that we are running to educate the public on the often hidden signs of alcohol addiction, through the use of an interactive web page.

Alcohol dependency is a condition that over a million people deal with in the UK (NICE). In fact, the NHS estimates that 9% of men and 4% of women in the UK are dependent on alcohol – however most don’t seek help.

Alcohol has also been identified as a causal factor in more than 60 serious medical conditions including heart disease and liver disease, various cancers and mental health problems (Public Health England).

With this in mind, we have developed an interactive campaign for interested parties to link to from their websites.

As one of the UK’s leading independent providers of alcohol rehabilitation and support services, we are committed to helping people overcome their addiction to alcohol and start their journey towards recovery. Our consultants treat people from all walks of life – often it is those you least expect who are struggling.

Our campaign is based on helping people to spot the signs of alcohol addiction, and we thought your audience might find it a useful support should they be worried about a partner’s, friend’s or relative’s drinking.

Disclaimer: I have no vested interest in The Priory Group and have received no payment from them for sharing this email nor is this a recommendation from me to use their services. It is purely just help to spread the word of their most recent campaign.

I normally steer clear of sharing these kind of lists on the blog but this one I read in The Telegraph in May I quite liked 🙂 As the post title suggests it’s shares the insights that we have because we are teetotal (another label I’m not terrifically keen on!)

According to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics, teetotalism is on the rise, with 21 per cent of Brits claiming not to drink at all, and almost half drinking less than they previously did.

As any teetotaller like myself will tell you, the release of stats such as these are always very encouraging (more sober people to speak to at parties!), but somewhat hard to believe. Twenty one per cent may be a notable increase, but it still places us alcohol-shunners firmly in the minority, marginalised from social norms.

Here are 10 things you only know if you don’t drink.

1. You get tired of explaining your reasons for abstaining

You go out, someone mentions drinks, and offers you a glass of wine. “No thanks, I don’t drink” you say, in the hope that, as a mature adult, they will respect your choice and move on. No such luck. “You don’t drink? What, not at all?” they cry in disbelief. “Why?” Once you reel out your valid, personal reasons for the millionth time they are still unlikely to be satisfied, and you find yourself contending either with knowing smiles and patronising comments such as “Ah, I just need to introduce you to a good red wine” or a glazed look of incomprehension, as if you’ve just revealed that you are in fact part-martian.

2. You end up finding ways to make it look like you’re drinking

Once you realise that choosing not to consume liquor proves too much for many of your acquaintances to handle, it becomes clear that a more peaceful evening can be had if you avoid the subject altogether. So you either ask for tap water because you’re “thirsty” or secretly order virgin cocktails, and hope that everyone will mistake your San Pellegrino with ice and a slice for a G&T. After several rounds, no one else will notice that you’re still sober, anyway.

3. You can remember all of your birthday parties…

…as well as those of your friends and any weddings, christenings or graduations you may have attended. There is no need to check Facebook or text someone to find out what happened last night, because, being alcohol-free, your memory is preserved. Rather than looking back on a haze of vodka-fuelled antics and missing belongings, you’ll remember the details: the conversations, the laughter, and all the fuzzy emotions. No embarrassment, and no need for an early morning walk of shame.

4. You can have productive Saturday and Sunday mornings

The benefits of living without hangovers cannot be underestimated. You can go out for an evening safe in the knowledge that, come the morning, you will be able to go about your business as usual without reaching for sunglasses, paracetamol or the nearest paper bag. Days do not need to be written off in advance for recovery, and you can fill your time with other things you enjoy.

5. You appreciate deep and meaningful​ late night conversations

All teetotallers know that, once the evening has past a certain point, maintaining any kind of serious conversation with a fellow reveller can become nigh-on impossible, as they segue from discussing Brexit to describing their socks, and complaining about that ex who would always leave toothpaste in the sink. Finding someone at 11pm who is sober enough to have a still have lucid conversation is a source of great joy, and you may end up bonding as a result.

6. You are sick to death of sparkling water

Although certain bars and brands are taking notice of increasing numbers of non-drinkers, the majority of venues do not offer enticing non-alcoholic options. This means you are faced with over-priced, syrup-laden mocktails, watery fruit juices from concentrate or water. Afraid that by constantly ordering tap water you will appear cheap, a killjoy or just distinctly unimaginative, you are forced to go for the sparkling option, as it appears slightly more grown up, whether or not you actually enjoy it. Sadly, until more bars cotton on to the fact that some of us would be interested in drinking a sophisticated tea or coffee after 7pm, you are forced to endure the abrasive, tasteless bubbles at all social events.

7. You have extra cash

By choosing not to drink, you are inevitably saving yourself a decent sum of money. A meal out with friends does not automatically mean lining and clearing out the contents of your wallet: not only are you saving on the hiked-up prices of alcohol in bars, but also the dodgy kebabs, taxi rides, dry-cleaning bills and inevitable Alkaseltzer the following day. As a result, you have extra money to spend on food, clothes and sober activities like going to the cinema or the gym. Crippling rent and bills aside, this makes it less likely that you’ll always be counting down the days til payday and forcing yourself to survive solely on pot noodles.

8. You realise how grimy most bars are

Everyone knows that alcohol allows you to see the world through rosé-coloured glasses, meaning that those under the influence tend not to notice sticky floors or mouldy walls. A life of sobriety allows you to appreciate all the charming details of the world’s drinking establishments in glorious technicolour, and you quickly understand that many of them are pretty nasty places. From the questionable stains in the toilets to the scum on the drinking glasses, you are forced to notice every unpleasant detail, while your drinking peers gush about how much fun they’re having.

9. You are an expert observer of the stages and types of drunkenness

Being in a minority, the non-drinker in a group has both the advantage and disadvantage of watching everyone else descend into the various types of drunk: the crier, the giggler, the flirt, the overly-sincere etc. You watch with amusement and/or despair as all your friends transform from rational humans into wide-eyed huggers or laughing maniacs, and spend a lot of time listening to people explain with earnest that Michael Jackson really isn’t dead, and that people should be more considerate to the local dormouse population. Whether you choose to remind them of these conversations the next day remains at your discretion.

10. You appreciate a good evening in

It is still very possible to maintain a busy social life as a non-drinker, but it’s likely that you are more inclined than most to enjoy the comforts of an evening at home, rather than a crowded bar. You don’t have to spend outrageous money on soft drinks or “bar snacks”, nor do you have to put up with inappropriate fondling from soused acquaintances, force anyone into a taxi, or mop up vomit. You can spend an enjoyable evening catching up with friends (or blissfully alone) on the sofa, cooking up a storm, or gorging on your favourite box set. And you can go to bed when you want. Result.

The only one I would disagree with is the dislike of sparkling water – which is still my go to drink almost 4 years in. Any you disagree with? Any you would add?

I think (know) I have a serious problem with alcohol. It freaks me out; it even wakes me up in my sleep because I am terrified of this tunnel I keep going further into. No one has ever said anything to me about it, because I’ve always been professional, calm, laid-back and in control. I don’t think I have control anymore, and it seriously scares me. I drink before work, when I wake up, drinking during lunch, and drink as soon as I get home to fall asleep, when no on can see me doing it.

But I also drink out socially, with my friends, and they are impossible NOT to drink around, and they actually prefer to see me “on”, which is the only state I seem to be comfortable with now. I don’t think I can give up drinking out socially, because without my friends, I would probably just end up drinking more at home alone.

I know you are not a psychologist, but I would like to get some unbiased advice about this. I have tried to approach some people about this before (including therapy), but it has proved fruitless, and also really embarrassing. I guess I am hoping you have the magic, easy solution to this, and I am going to assume there probably isn’t one.

Thanks, Drinker

Dear Drinker,

My unbiased advice is that you know you’re addicted to alcohol and you need help. You’re right that there is no “magic easy solution” to this, sweet pea, but there is a solution. It’s that you stop using alcohol. Privately. Socially. Morning. Noon. Night. And probably forever.

You will need to do this when you’re ready to do this. To be ready you need only the desire to change your life. To succeed, most people need a community of support. Alcoholics Anonymous is a good place to begin. There, you will find those who struggle in the same ways you do; people who once told themselves the same lies about what was “impossible.”

Addiction is a tunnel that wakes you up in the middle of the night. Everything else happens out here in the light.

So I’ve been having a massive clear out following stumbling across the blog of Be More With Less. As part of that I was having a good old sort through of my office and came across this list that was clearly written back in the days of my drinking and smoking because of what I called it! Its ‘replace’ sub-heading was healthy relaxation methods as I was desperately looking for ways to relax that didn’t include booze and fags.

The reason for writing this post is two fold. Firstly to share the list so here it is:

Aromatherapy

Acupuncture

Hot stone massage

Reflexology

Flotation tank

Reiki

Meditation

Swedish massage

Exercise = running

Music

Chocolate

Mindfulness

Diet + increased water intake/Less caffeine and sugar

Bath

Scented candles

Cup of herbal tea

Reading

Sleeping

Cinema

Yoga

If you’re looking for even more inspiration how about this:

The Mayo Clinic say to get the most benefit, use relaxation techniques along with other positive coping methods, such as thinking positively, finding humor, problem-solving, managing time, exercising, getting enough sleep, and reaching out to supportive family and friends. They go on to say that by practicing relaxation techniques we can reduce stress symptoms by:

Slowing your heart rate

Lowering blood pressure

Slowing your breathing rate

Reducing activity of stress hormones

Increasing blood flow to major muscles

Reducing muscle tension and chronic pain

Improving concentration and mood

Lowering fatigue

Reducing anger and frustration

Boosting confidence to handle problems

And secondly I am pleased to say that I have finally signed up for the one thing on my list I’ve avoided up until now – the body technique at no 20! I’ve been resisting it because I have sensed it is going to engage me to work on some somatic elements of my recovery that I know is going to potentially be hard so I’ve been procrastinating. I know how beneficial others have found it and that many in the recovery community are big advocates of it so I’m finally diving in and I’ll let you know how I get on. If you want to share your experience of yoga in the comments along with any hints and tips please do 🙂

More guest content this time courtesy of James and image courtesy of www.pixabay.com about recovering from alcohol addiction.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word addiction? I mean, there are different types of addiction. There are people who are addicted to reading. Others are addicted to the internet or computer games. There are even people who are addicted to studying. Well, the thing is, they’re not all the same.

Different types of addiction have different degrees. Some people might even argue that other types of addiction can be a good thing. Let’s say, for example, is being addicted to studying. How can too much studying be a bad thing? But, reality strikes again.

There are bad sides to studying too much. One example would be not having a social life. When you’re too engrossed on academics, not having enough time for your friends, then you might find yourself at the mercy of a mental illness called depression anxiety.

So, what’s my point? What does it have anything to do alcohol addiction? Well, everything. I mean, when you’re addicted to studying, you don’t really see anything wrong with it. Good grades make you happy, but pretty soon you are going to have your sessions, and then suddenly being too engrossed in studying wasn’t such a good idea after all. Well, it’s pretty much the same with alcohol addiction. Drinking is a social activity. At first, you don’t see anything wrong with it. I mean, if drinking makes you happy, it can’t be that bad, right? But apparently, at some time of your life, the negative sides of being addicted to alcohol starts to show, and you’re going to wish you were never addicted to it in the first place.

But the thing is, just like any other addiction, getting through it is hard. It’s not an easy feat. It’s not something you can do overnight. It’s going to take time. You need to familiarize yourself with all the correct steps in order to overcome it, and in this article, you’re going to find out just how by answering the following questions:

What do you get out of it?

Try to list down all the benefits that you get out of drinking alcohol. It’s not just about getting to know the benefits. It’s also about trying to think up alternatives. I mean, if drinking makes you feel better about your problems, this could be a phase where you’ll be writing down possible alternatives. Get to know other hobbies that will give you the same benefits.

How much does it cost?

Now that you have a list of all the things that you get out of drinking alcohol, you can now begin to ask yourself, if it’s all worth the cost.

I mean, if you’re drinking to forget about your problems, perhaps, you’ve to find a different hobby that helps you do the same. Perhaps, reading on your spare time would also help you forget your problems.

You can now evaluate if you’d rather spend for alcohol or just read for free, in order to forget about your problems.

Set goals

Getting over your alcohol addiction doesn’t start when you say so. It starts when you decide. Action can only start when you have goals. So, starting today, you should list down some of your goals. These are the goals that you should list down:

The date when plan to launch your call to action

Whether you’re going to eradicate drinking completely or just regulate it

Remove temptations from your life

Abstain from everything that reminds of drinking.

All the planning would be of no use if one beer poster is just going to tempt you back to being a drunkard.

Tell your friends about your goal

No matter what you do there will always be temptations all around you. Self-control won’t always be enough. There will be times when you’ll fall into the pit.

So, what now? Do you just quit? Well, of course not. What you should do is to tell your friends, family, and everyone you know. That way, you’ll have all the support you can get. When you have the entire family or friendship circle rooting you to get better, it’s impossible for you to not abstain from alcohol.

Author Bio

James R. Robinson is an essayist for hqassignments.net. Needless to say, he has a passion for words. Most of his relatives are quite obsessed with science. His family is a streak line of businessmen, architects, doctors, and lawyers. He, on the other hand, chose art. He chose to write. Even so, he doesn’t think he’s that far off. Being a writer isn’t all art. It’s a part science and half art. So, he’s sort of in between them.